Roe Green

Roe Green is a local arts patron, activist, and CEO of The Roe Green Foundation. 

Ms. Green received her B.A in theatre and communications from the University of Colorado in 1970 and in 1980 she was awarded an M.A. in theatre from Kent State University. She has extensive stage and business management experience, includes Cain Park, The Cleveland Opera, and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

In 2003, the Roe Green foundation established a visiting director’s series for the School of Theatre and Dance. In 2018, Ms. Green and the Roe Green Foundation endowed the visiting director series with a gift of $2.2 to allow the series to continue on for decades to come.

In January, 2006, the Roe Green Foundation pledged the largest capital gift in Kent State University history in order to create The Roe Green Center for the School of Theatre and Dance. This capital gift enabled the construction of new and the renovation of existing facilities in the Music and Speech Building (now the Center for the Performing Arts) which united theatre and dance under one roof for the first time in university history. The project brought the footprint of the School of Theatre and Dance to more than 70,000 square feet. The new facilities help create a central location on campus for the performing arts, as the building will house programs in theatre, dance and music.

At Kent State University, Ms. Green is an emeritus member of the the Kent State University Foundation board and sits on boards of the School of Theatre and Dance and Porthouse Theatre. 

Ms. Green serves on the board of The Cleveland Play House, where she is the honorary producer of New Ground, a festival that showcases new work in the performing arts. Green is honorary producer for the new play workshop in Chautauqua, NY and serves on the dean’s advisory board at the University of Colorado, on the President’s advisory council of Case Western Reserve University, and on the advisory board of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Green is on the International board of Governor’s for the Shaw Festival in Canada and is the co-chair of the Israeli arts committee for the Jewish Federation in Cleveland. Green is the president emeritus of C.A.V.O.R.T., Inc. (Conference About Volunteers of Regional Theatres). 

As CEO of the Roe Green Foundation, Green is responsible for the Judge Ben C. Green professorship at Case Western Reserve University, as well as the law library named for her father.  The Roe Green Foundation established a battered women’s shelter in Geauga called the "Green House," and the Foundation also started the Green Arts Fund that supported the Jewish Community Center arts and culture programs. 

Green is the recipient of the 2009 Ohio Arts Council’s Governor’s Arts Patron award, the President’s medallion from Kent State University, and awards from the Cleveland Play House, University of Colorado, and Maltz Jupiter Theatre.  She received the Dramatist Guild Fund award for her work with new plays in 2013. In 2015, Ms. Green received the Kent State University College of the Arts' inaugural Centennial Award for her service and patronage. In 2017, she will receive the Theatre Forward Leadership Award at the Theatre Forward Chairman's Awards Gala. 

Ms. Green, an avid world traveller who has visited more than 160 countries, was a competitive ballroom dancer for 12 years.